The mont they stepped inside, she turned toward him imdiately.
"Alright," she said, pointing at him like she was laying down a rule. "You’re staying close to tonight."
Aren raised an eyebrow.
"Define close."
"Close enough that if sothing weird happens with my voice, you won’t have to knock out again."
Aren followed behind her until they reached the bedroom door.
She pushed it open and stepped inside. Then she turned and looked at him expectantly. Aren stopped in the doorway.
"...No."
Miu blinked.
"No?"
"No," Aren repeated calmly. "I am not entering your bedroom."
"Why not?"
"Why do I even have to explain this?"
She stared at him for a mont before groaning loudly. "
Ah fine, do whatever you please."
Miu closed the door shut with a soft thud, her voice could still be heard on the other side as she complained.
"My personal security guard is scared of won!"
Once again, Aren felt the obvious bait she was laying out and decided not to respond.
Instead, he leaned back against the wall beside the door before slowly sliding down until he was sitting on the floor, one knee bent while the other stretched out in front of him.
Then he heard a soft rustling from the other side of the door.
Followed by a quiet thump. On the other side of the door, Miu sat with her back pressed against the sa spot.
Aren leaned his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling of the hallway while the quiet of the penthouse settled around them. The thick door between them muffled most sounds, but he could still faintly hear Miu shifting on the other side as she adjusted her position on the floor.
A thought lingered in his mind as he sat in the idol’s penthouse. No matter how much he searched his mories, Aren couldn’t find an answer.
Miu Harmonia...The na still doesn’t ring any bells.
Either in my past, she never rose high enough for the world to notice...Or soone got to her quicker.
On the other side of the door, he could hear her breathing faintly. Just a girl his age sitting on the floor after a long day of rehearsals.
After a mont, he spoke.
"Miu..."
There was a small rustle on the other side.
"Yeah?"
He hesitated for just a second before asking the question that had been forming in his mind since the conversation began.
"What made you want to beco an idol?"
For a mont, there was only silence on the other side of the door. Aren wondered if the question had been too direct.
"...I didn’t want to at first."
Her voice ca through the door, softer than before.
Aren tilted his head slightly.
"You didn’t?"
"Nope."
There was a small pause before she continued.
"My mom wanted to beco a Mystic," Miu continued. "Hence...the illegal awakening."
Aren’s brow creased slightly.
"In Star City’s underground street?" he asked, "One of those shops?"
"Yeah," she replied imdiately. "One of those shops."
He could practically imagine the place. Plastic chairs along with the bored technician that was running the shop off of black-market parts.
Aren had never stepped inside one himself, but he had seen enough of them during his years living there.
In his previous life, he had spent several years attending a third-rate college in Star City.
Even then, he had been considered lucky.
The campus sat in one of the better districts, far from the cramped alleyways and rusting apartnt towers that defined the lower areas.
"You’ve been to Star City?"
"Yeah," Aren responded. "I know what it’s like."
Miu’s voice continued quietly.
"The buildings were so close together you could barely see the sky," she said. "The stairwells didn’t have lights, and the water didn’t even work half the ti."
"But even so..." Miu continued after a mont. "After all those budget Mystic training classes taught by so old dude who probably shouldn’t have been teaching anything..."
She let out a small laugh.
"I’d always climb out to the balcony and look up at the stars above."
"Well, you couldn’t exactly see them through the smog and dust," she said softly. "But they were there...sowhere."
Aren listened quietly.
"You weren’t practicing your Arts on the balcony, were you?" he asked after a mont.
There was a brief pause before Miu laughed.
"Nah, the balcony was for sothing else."
Aren tilted his head slightly.
"Oh?"
"My dad left this old music player before he disappeared," she said.
Her voice softened slightly.
"Nothing fancy. One of those tiny pocket ones with a cracked screen and cheap headphones."
A small pause followed.
"I used to bring it out to the balcony at night," she said softly. "And I’d just... sing along with whatever songs were on it."
"Back then I thought if I sang loud enough, the stars would notice and finally peek through the smog."
"Funny, right?" she said with a quiet laugh. "But it wasn’t the stars that noticed."
"It was my neighbors."
"Turns out one of them recorded singing from the building across the alley and sent the clip to a talent agency."
"And was it the sa one you’re at now?" Aren asked.
"Yup."
He was quiet for a mont after she finished. For soone who had spent the entire day joking around and teasing him, the story she had just told felt surprisingly simple.
"...That’s impressive," Aren said after a mont.
He slumped a bit more against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.
"Climbing out of a place like Star City on your own isn’t—"
But that was when he heard a noise through the door and stopped. On the other side, Miu was snoring quietly.
"...You’re kidding."
For soone who had clawed her way out of a place like Star City through nothing but stubborn persistence and a love for singing...
She was almost ridiculously simple.
Aren exhaled slowly.
Which made it all the more likely that she had been dragged into sothing far more complicated than she realized.
His eyes drifted toward the dark window at the end of the hallway. None of it had anything to do with a girl who used to sing on a slum balcony.
Yet sohow, all of it now revolved around her.
Aren closed his eyes.
Whatever plan was unfolding behind the scenes... He would tear it apart piece by piece.
And when he was done—
Miu Harmonia would be free to keep singing to the stars.
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